September 06, 2013

A new identity delivers for this unique farm shop.

When Thompson Brand Partners began
working with Keelham Farm Shop in 2010, the business was in good
shape. They had a good, regular customer base, steady trade and a very good
reputation within the local community. They had an award-winning butchers shop,
strong family values, and a passion for good, local food. But owners Victoria
and James Robertshaw had an ambition to grow their business even more, to grow
the profit of the Thornton site, but also develop a model and brand that would
allow expansion and be transferable to new sites.Thompson engaged with Keelham through the Design Council’s ‘Design in
Demand’ programme with a brief to design a new brand identity that would
encapsulate the simple homemade quality at the heart of the Robershaw’s ethos,
to help drive the growth of the business.Thompson’s design approach was centred around a simple proposition,
‘food tastes better from the farm’. This was brought to life by creating a
flexible portfolio of components for the brand to allow Keelham the flexibility
and freedom to roll out across all aspects of the business and to individualise
each of the unique departments within the shop. The custom font, colour palette
and visual style helped with flexibility, and a handdrawn illustrative style
for icons articulated themes and messaging in a distinct way. The new branding has since been applied throughout the shop, inside and
out, as well as to packaging, the website, uniforms, communications and vehicle
liveries, driven by Thompson and the team at Keelham.The rebrand has already delivered fantastic results, especially
impressive in an extremely competitive market. In 3 years since the rebrand,
turnover is up 52%, profit margins are up to 32.4% (from 28.4%) and
weekly customer numbers are up 27%. All of this has been achieved with a
commitment to affordability, with an average basket of 37 items bought at
Keelham on 13 Feb 2013 was 17% cheaper than Asda, 18% cheaper than Tesco, and
28% cheaper than Sainsbury’s.

The most exciting development has been the acquisition of a site for the
next Keelham Farm Shop in Skipton, North Yorkshire. Planning permission has
been secured and work starts on site in Autumn 2013 leading to an opening in
2014.

“With
the help of Thompson Brand Partners, we have articulated our brand values and
developed an exciting visual identity which has refreshed our business without
losing what we had and helped drive considerable growth. Importantly, the
branding is also being successful in enabling us to build our business further
and has created a template to enable future growth including other farm shop
sites.” Victoria Robertshaw, Joint Owner, Keelham Farm Shop.